This invention relates generally to the field of transferring a patient from a stationary and preferably elevated surface onto a mobile transport mechanism such as a hospital gurney. More particularly, it concerns a patient transfer mechanism and gurney equipped therewith for transferring a patient from a hospital bed or the like onto the gurney (or vice versa).
Bedded patients are often relatively immobilized and incapable even of assisting in their transfer to a gurney. Conventionally, multiple hospital staff members move a patient from a bed to a gurney by manually grasping the four corners of a bed sheet and lifting the patient situated on the sheet laterally from the surface of the bed to the surface of a bedside-situated gurney. Sometimes, a special lift pad first is incrementally maneuvered underneath the patient by rolling the patient to one side, pushing the middle region of the pad partly underneath the patient, flattening the pad on the first side of the patient, then rolling the patient to the other side beyond the pad, then grasping the second side of the pad from underneath the patient and flattening the pad on the second side of the patient. The patient with the pad flattened underneath him or her is then lifted as one, in the manner described above for the sheet.
After the transfer to the gurney, the above process often must be repeated to remove the sheet or lift pad from underneath the patient.
Such laborious maneuvers must be repeated each time the patient is to be transferred to or from the gurney. Moreover, the special lift pad must be laundered each time after use for hygiene and sanitation reasons.
Patient discomfort results from such transfers, even when attempted by the best trained and most caring hospital or field staff.